


from aurora, with love

by bokutoma



Category: Akash: Path of the Five (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, LIBERAL expansion on the valentine's lore, aurora is kind of a twerp, cinnamon candy, ignatius's drawings, love that for her, never once do we say the name iggy, rocco definitely in the background flexing his heritage, siROCCO - Freeform, ur welcome my king
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22852972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma
Summary: a little expansion on the valentine's lore; nate is really bad at giving gifts (he tries, bless him)
Relationships: Aurora/Ignatius (Akash: Path of the Five)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	from aurora, with love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nightbright](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightbright/gifts).



> this is a request for kadmin!! thanks so much for your support <333

Centuries before even the longest elemental memory could extend to, back when the goddess communicated with the Al'wani people far more freely than she did now, she had been lonely.

Perhaps to any child or human, this might have seemed odd. She was a _deity_ ; how could loneliness even occur to her as something she might be able to feel? Even in those early days, there were hundreds of her elemental children, all granted life and power by virtue of her love. How could she feel herself to be alone?

Maybe this was understood better now, with the wane of the Al'wani population barely months from being reversed, but even the oldest elementals of any age could spin a story from their own personal history, the isolation that comes from having memories of a time long past.

The goddess had seen the rise and fall of many of her children, and none of them could understand what it was to be ageless and immortal. Perhaps the mountains and the sky didn't mourn the passing of the trees and the birds, but she couldn't be quite so closed off. It wasn't in her nature, after all.

How long had it been since she talked to someone? How long had it been since the last time prayer had felt like a conversation? These questions and more she pondered, but no matter how she tried to console herself, the answers were incontrovertible, unavoidable in their truth.

It was a vicious cycle; with little else of magnitude to occupy the endless swaths of her intelligence, the goddess couldn't help but dwell further on this plight, and the more she thought about it, the worse she felt. There was even less she could do about it, considering the minuscule time any individual had in their life, not to mention the breadth of her own duties, and with no comfort to turn to, she sunk into a great depression.

Of course, considering that she was a goddess, this did not come without consequences.

The first sign to the elementals below that anything was amiss in the heavens was the rains.

Certainly, a storm was by no means unusual to the Al'wani. Even the villages of the fire elementals, dry and stiflingly hot as they were, were prone to bouts of tropical weather as the whims of nature dictated. Still, when the downpours didn't let up after a month, even those of the water began to display some concern. Crying out as one, they beseeched the goddess to tell them where they had gone wrong that they might remedy their ways, but so great was her lamentation that she couldn't hear them.

Instead, more alone than she had ever truly been, the goddess's grief only deepened.

Snow fell from the sky like a personal rejection of what the Al'wani had prayed for. The elementals of fire and light were dimmed by the ever-present rain clouds, those of earth found themselves choked by the heavy grip of the ceaseless water, and those of wind found themselves hard-pressed to control the strong winds of the storm. Even the water elementals fared poorly, drowned out as they were by the infinite water.

Each day that passed, the Al'wani despaired, but no matter what they did, they couldn't pierce through the howling wind and water. The goddess, so lost to her sadness, didn't realize that her children could no longer reach her, and thought that they too had abandoned her.

Finally, the people could stand no more of this limbo and began to hatch a plan to win back the gentle love of their goddess.

One among them, a wind elemental whose name had been lost to time, proposed a plan that even the most skilled among the Al'wani deemed dangerous. They could find no other solution, though, so they felt they had no choice but to attempt it.

They would meet the goddess and assuage her loneliness with a permanent gift.

This was not so simple as flight, of course. The mountain that housed the earthly body of their goddess was leagues high, and with the battering rain and wind, it would take the concentrated effort of dozens of elementals working in tandem. Still, the Al'wani knew this must be done, and they marshaled their faces to aid their brilliant friend.

In this way, the wind elemental made their way up the mountain, struggling against the harsh weather that protected their dear Mother of the World, a small package clutched tightly in their arms.

Though it was arduous, the intrepid elemental found themself before the goddess, having reached the peak of the mountain via the combined strength and skill of the others. She was radiant, glorious in a way that would have belied her godhood even had they not known of it already, but her misery had dulled her, and all at once the wind elemental felt a pang of sorrow for the deity that had given so much.

"O Goddess, granter of gifts!" they cried, but their words were lost to the wind. "Life-bringer, please hear me!"

Still, she did not move, and the wind elemental knew they would have to try harder.

Grunting with effort, they focused deeply on parting the blade-like gusts of wind that only seemed to increase in danger the closer they got to their source. _I mean her no harm_ , they thought, unsure whether the wind's source would mean that it might have understood them. _All I want is to help_.

To their surprise, it worked. No longer did sweat bead on their brow as they attempted to push forward, and just in time, as they were beginning to feel the strain of their efforts up to this point wearing heavily on them.

"Goddess?" they tried again, voice laced with exhaustion.

To their surprise, that glorious, near-incomprehensible head lifted, and as their eyes met, the wind elemental saw the glories of the world from her view and how lonely they were with no one to share them with. Surprised by the weight of this feeling, they began to weep, but the subs that wracked their body didn't prevent from stepping forward, presenting her with the package they had so carefully safeguarded on their way up the mountain.

"Goddess, I brought this for thee," they said, voice shaking with the terrible knowledge she had accidentally granted them.

They could not quite comprehend how she moved to open her gift, but they knew she had from the soft gasp that seemed to echo from all around them. Nestled inside the box were five items: a perfect flower colored the blue of a summer evening, a chocolate lovingly decorated with hearts and filled with cream, a crystal sphere filled with clear spring water, colorful sand that seemed to dance even in the stillest air, and a clear prism that radiated fragments of light even in the darkest of rooms. All the Al'wani had poured their hearts and souls into their gifts for their beloved goddess.

Before their very eyes, the wind elemental saw the goddess tremble, but before they could consider what this might mean, she began to cry once more.

These tears, however, were not like those that had fallen before the Al'wani had sent the wind elemental up the mountain. These were those of gratitude, and as they fell, the wind ceased its frenetic swirling, and the drops separated into small, sparkling things, more like watery kisses than any proper storm.

When the wind elemental descended the mountain once more, the Al'wani celebrated, and it was decreed that during the second month of every year, love - be it romantic, platonic, familial, or erotic - would be shown to every individual, so none might feel the pain the goddess had once felt.

* * *

It was only the first week of the month-long celebration of love, and each day, Aurora had woken up to a new gift outside her dorm door.

It wasn't totally unexpected, of course; Lux and Papa had always been very generous with gifts over the years, and though she could go a little overboard sometimes, she had nothing on Papa when he got the chance to tell her he loved her.

Still, this year had the ring of newness to it; yesterday, for example, she'd gotten a box of delicious, airy pastries with a rather elaborate winking face drawn on top. As far as Aurora knew, Rocco had only ever given gifts to Rowan in the past, but the events of this year had brought her classmates closer together than she could ever have dreamed. Even Caspian had gotten her a gift; she hadn't gotten it yet, but he was a little bad with surprises and had just gone ahead and told her that she could expect a staff from his hometown.

Of course, she had gotten gifts for everyone else as well: books for Lux and Caspian, sweets for Rocco and Rowan, and special parchment she'd bought from the human village for Ignatius.

Ignatius, however, was the only person who _hadn't_ gotten her a gift.

Sure, he was probably saving his gift for later, but Aurora couldn't help the nerves that had settled in her stomach. This...thing between them was still new, and with the stress of graduation coming up...she hadn't exactly told anyone what element she was planning to pick, and Nate was already so shy.

Still, it was only the beginning of the month. Lux would tell her not to worry, that she was being stupid (in nicer words, of course, but she got the point), and he would be right. That didn't stop her from wanting to storm his room and hang around him until he at least gave her _some_ sort of gift.

She could, though, couldn't she?

There hadn't been much time to process during the whole debacle with the humans, and the month after that had been filled with so much joy and exhaustion that it had been hard to get a word in edgewise, but for the first time in her life, Aurora was _dating_ someone. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for her to go to Ignatius's room and hang out with him.

So why did the very idea make her feel so awkward?

It was just nerves, she knew, and that decided it for her. She wasn't going to let a little bit of anxiety dictate how she lived her life, especially not after what she'd been through.

Mustering her courage (and sneaking another bite of Rocco's pastries), she opened her door and fled across the hall, nervous that if she let up for a second, her bravery would abandon her.

It took a good thirty seconds after she knocked for Ignatius to open the door, but the first thing she noticed was the smudge of black running along his face.

"Hey," he said, trying and failing to look as casual as possible. "What's up?"

"You've got something on your face," she replied instead of answering, reaching out to try to wipe it off with her thumb. Mostly it just smudged more, but the whole thing had been half for the pleasure of watching Ignatius blush, which he did. "Are you going to let me in?"

"No." She must have looked hurt because he backpedaled quickly. "You're going to spoil your present if you come in."

"At this point, I can already guess at some of it." She gestured with her thumb, now slightly blackened. "Besides, I miss you. I haven't seen you for at _least_ two weeks."

"That's a gross over-exaggeration," he said, but he let her in anyway. "You're kind of a brat, you know?"

Aurora just grinned widely and planted a kiss on his cheek. "You're the best, Nate!"

She gave him a good ten seconds of sputtering before she gently nudged him into the room and shut the door.

"So now I'm expecting- holy _shit_ , Ignatius!"

Aurora had only been in his room a handful of times, and on every occasion, her boyfriend (goddess, what a novel word) had had pictures pinned all over his walls. It had almost been overwhelming, that first visit, especially with emotions running so high, but there had always been overwhelming, that first visit, especially with emotions running so high, but there had always been clear order once she'd known where to look.

This, however, was utter chaos.

Balled up pieces of paper and parchment littered the floor, and gaps where he must have taken down drawings showed bare wall in noticeably lighter patches. Clearly, he'd been having some sort of artist's block, and she couldn't help the pang of sympathy that gripped her.

"No luck of late?" she asked.

"Can't get your face right," he admitted. "I keep trying, but there's always something missing. Sorry about that. Even _Sirocco_ finished his stupid present before me."

 _Don't smile, Aurora_! It was hard not to, though, hearing Ignatius talk about his frustrations so openly. He'd clearly worked so hard on this, and the fact that he wouldn't settle for anything less than his best for her made her indescribably happy. Looking closer, all of the pictures he'd taken down had been of her, now sitting on his desk for easy reference; there was the one of her and Lux sharing a cake, and tucked partially beneath it was his first of her, seductive and shy all in one.

"Aw, Nate!" Unthinking, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. "You spoil me."

"Can't spoil you if I can't finish the stupid thing," he grumbled, but he seemed pleased all the same. "I do have something else for you, though."

Yes, Aurora _very much_ liked presents.

While he looked for the gift, she flopped down on his bed, relishing in its soft comfort. "By the way, I got you new parchment," she said. "Looks like I made the right call."

"Shut up." He popped back up again clutching a small, clear box. "Or don't you want this?"

It was a small thing, delicately wrapped with more precision than most would probably give Ignatius credit for, considering his blunt attitude. Aurora knew better, though; from the delicate threads of gold in the lovely red ribbon to the carefully fiery color scheme, the entire thing practically vibrated with his artistic touch.

She fluttered her eyelashes at him in a move she was almost certain looked completely ridiculous, but it had the desired effect. With only minimal grumbling, he gave the box up.

Regardless of what was inside, she knew she'd like it. After all, the only people Ignatius couldn't compete with when it came to knowledge of her were Lux and Papa, and both were unfair comparisons to make to begin with.

When she saw Magmus's telltale stamp beneath the wrapping, though, she went wild.

"Watch where you're throwing that!" Ignatius snapped, ducking a scrap of paper she'd accidentally launched at him, but there was an obvious edge of humor to his voice as well. "Man, you'd think I was giving you jewels or something."

"Watch it, buddy." Like him, though, there was no heat to her counter, and when she unwrapped a small, clear container of cinnamon candies, she grinned wildly and threw her arms around him, tackling him to the floor. "I thought he stopped making these!"

"I just asked," he grumbled, flushed even redder than normal. "It's not a big deal."

When she kissed him, though, she thought he understood how pleased she was.

(In the end, he'd presented her with a sketch of her face upon popping the first candy in her mouth. If he hadn't made her look as lovely as he did, he would have been in serious trouble.)

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on twitter @kingblaiddyd


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